


Long Winds in Wyoming

by LadyAJ_13



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Gen, Inspector Morse Era, wyoming - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 10:31:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20581064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAJ_13/pseuds/LadyAJ_13
Summary: It’s no doubt a terrible idea, but it’s a terrible idea that's got him on a train, then a plane, then into a rental car.--Morse goes to visit Jakes.





	Long Winds in Wyoming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fitzrove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fitzrove/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Soft Like Summer Rain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18897688) by [Fitzrove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fitzrove/pseuds/Fitzrove). 

> This was inspired by Fitzrove's excellent 'Soft Like Summer Rain', and if you haven't read it, go - now! It's one of my top top top fics in the Endeavour fandom and not only got me thinking about Wyoming and Peter Jakes post-canon, but turned Hope (who we only see for what - 30 seconds? with zero lines?) into a real character than I love and have shamelessly tried to emulate here despite being in a different 'universe'. All done without permission - I'm not sure of the etiquette but I'm hoping you won't hold it against me, have this fic as a gift in thanks :)
> 
> Titled (because I'm rubbish at them) from an Archibald MacLeigh quote "summer is... long winds in Wyoming" (yes I googled 'Wyoming quotes", what of it?).
> 
> Finally, rated G but there are a couple of swear words, just as a warning.

It’s no doubt a terrible idea, but it’s a terrible idea that's got him on a train, then a plane, then into a rental car.

Lewis had announced he was off to Spain with the family for two weeks, and Morse had immediately remembered the last Lewis family holiday – and the excruciating temporary sergeant he'd been lumbered with – and booked off the same two weeks. He had holiday well overdue anyway.

Then he remembered the Lewis family holiday before that, when he'd tried taking time off in Oxford, thinking he'd catch up on reading and attend a few concerts. A double murder poisoning case had dragged him back in, until Lewis returned refreshed to find Morse three pints deep and too many nights sleep down, barely conscious at the Turf's bar.

It was clear he needed to go away. But he's not exactly long on friends, and the idea of baking on a beach for two weeks – either alone or tagging along with the Lewis' like a sad old uncle – made his brain feel like it was melting out of his ears.

He told Lewis he was going to the Lakes for literature and a new set of old pubs. He told Strange he was heading to Italy – well out of reach for questions or assistance – to tour the grand church architecture and sample wine. He told Max the closest to the truth; a trip to Boston, for the history and museums.

The closest geographically, at least.

Morse pulls up the car after miles of dusty, windswept farmland. The buildings are old but cared for, there’s a flourishing vegetable patch curving down one side of the main house, and there are no other dwellings in sight – it must be the place.

Except he might not even live here any more.

Wyoming. All this way on nothing more than a whim and a decades old postcard, yellowed and tea-stained.

A woman rounds the corner, and shades her eyes with a hand. Her hair is grey, but still long and curly, and in her other hand she holds secateurs in a relaxed grip. It could be her.

“Can I help you?”

“Mrs Jakes?”

“Hope,” she clarifies, and he wonders whether its innate American friendliness or whether – after all this – they divorced. It’s been years; Jakes could have gone anywhere. He could have been back in England for half their lives, no reason to let anyone in Oxford know, least of all the constable he clashed horns with on a daily basis.

They weren't really friends. Might have been, given time, but the clock ticked down and ended on two sides of the Atlantic.

“Can I help?” she asks again, and her tone is still kind, despite his lack of consideration for the conversation.

“Morse,” he says, holding out a hand which she grasps and shakes with friendliness but no recognition. “I used to work with-” he stutters slightly over the name, but can't imagine surnames are de rigeur in cowboying- “Peter.”

His accent must help connect the dots, because he can practically see her brain ticking over and the moment it clicks. “Morse!” she exclaims, pointing at him. “The policeman. With the bonds?”

He'd almost forgotten about those. It was a last-minute choice, which he'd not regretted, although he could have done with the money when his father's debts started to come through. What he'd regretted was not being able to say more, in his note. No kind words, just money stuffed in a ratty envelope for a child he'd never know. He nods.

“You must come in-”

“Is Peter home?” It’s suddenly occurred to him that Jakes smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish (not that he can talk) and left one dangerous job for another. He might not even be alive.

She grasps him by the arm and starts steering him towards the house. “He's out in the fields, let's get inside, it’s hot as hell out here. Is he expecting you? He didn't mention-”

“Oh, no, I was just... passing.” If she wonders where he could possibly be passing to and from to end up on the doorstep of a Wyoming cattle ranch when his normal habitat is the streets of Oxford, England, she's nice enough not to mention it. It is cooler in the house, unnaturally so, and he shivers slightly at the change.

“It’s nice isn’t it?” she grins at him. “Air conditioning, we got it put in this spring. It makes such a difference, this is the first summer I haven't been flaked out every day by noon.” She walks them both through to the kitchen, and it’s a light, airy room. Morse stares at the table and tries to imagine Jakes sitting at it, eating toast of a morning, but the picture doesn't fit. He realises he's picturing Jakes as he was, despite the changes in his own face in the mirror, and in the woman in front of him. “Tea?”

“Thank you.”

The tea when it comes is from the fridge, served in a glass, and given a lemon segment as decoration. He looks at it dubiously, and glances up to see her smirking at him. “Peter gave iced tea that exact same look, first time.”

“I'm pretty sure tea is meant to be warm. With milk.”

“I'm pretty sure the English didn't invent tea. It was the Indians.”

“Chinese,” he corrects. “Shang dynasty.”

“Either way.” She nudges the glass. “If you hate it, we have a kettle and we have milk. But you're in the US of A now, it’s time to start living like the locals.”

He takes a wary sip, and it’s not tea, but it is refreshing and it clears the feeling of road dust in his mouth. She laughs at his second, larger gulp, and tops up the glass.

“So. Morse.”

“Yes?”

“Tell me stories of Peter as a,” she frowns, putting on a terrible accent, “copper.”

It was all so long ago that what once seemed devastating has softened, and he tells her of their first case together, then Mason Gull, then ghost-fixated schoolgirls. He steers clear of anything related to Blenheim Vale, but hops ahead to the tiger, and Hope makes all the right noises and laments how Peter would have loved his last case to involve zoo animals rather than supermarkets and a bored little rich girl.

It’s a long time since he spoke to someone new, he realises. Not that he's ever been much of a storyteller, but he's lived his life for so long now that he thinks it boring and run of the mill. In Hope's wide eyes and questions, it becomes more of a story, fit for television. “What about you?” he asks, when his voice is starting to tire and they’ve decamped to the living room in search of comfier chairs. “How did you turn an Englishman into a cowboy?”

“It took a while,” Hope says, leaning in with her eyes sparkling. “I've got some pictures, but I'll dig them out when Pete gets back, because his ears go all red when he's embarrassed...”

–

They hear the door bang open as Hope tells him about the children, and she lays a hand on his arm and a finger to her lips. She gets up, leaving him sunk in the over-filled sofa, and goes to greet Jakes.

He hears them walking down the corridor, Hope’s light steps and Jakes’ odd gait, familiar even after all these years and solidified by heavy boots instead of sharp, polished brogues. Jakes is nattering about his day. His voice is still the same; just a slight twang to certain vowels, but the Oxford accent underlying it is still strong. The subject matter, of course, is different to what he remembers.

They enter the room and Jakes hasn’t seen him, giving him a chance to look – just for a second. He hasn’t changed much, although naturally he’s older – but he looks stronger now, in a wiry way, and tanned. Dust-streaked, and doesn’t that bring back Jakes stumbling out of a tunnel, grinning, dishevelled like Morse have never seen before. He’s kept his hair; not gone white like Morse’s, but a peppered grey, dampened with sweat and flattened down where he was no doubt wearing a hat just moments before. Their eyes meet.

“Hello Jakes.”

He’s not sure if its his voice, or the old appellation, but recognition dawns. “Morse?!”

He should get up, but the sofa is fair swallowing him and as he struggles Jakes strides across the room and tugs him upwards. His hands are callused, but he doesn’t go for a shake – instead throws his arms around him, and the shock of it keeps him quiet. It seems Jakes has gone all American out here, with his casual displays of affection.

“Jesus – you – what?”

Morse shrugs. “Just dropped in.”

“From _Oxford_?” He pushes him back, holding him at the shoulders, and stares. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes, yes-“

“I’ll let you two get caught up,” Hope laughs. “Dinner in half an hour or so.”

\--

Dinner is a convivial meal; skewers made from home grown vegetables, chicken, bread, and more of that strange cold tea. When they’ve eaten, he gets the tour of the house, and Hope kisses them both on the cheek before leaving them to it.

Jakes opens a hidden panel and it reveals a short staircase. “Roof access. Best bit of the whole place.” He motions Morse up ahead of him, and as his head breaks out into wide, dark sky he understands why. The heat of the day still drifts in the air, but it’s tempered now by the darkness and the ever-present breeze. After the chill of air conditioning it feels likes stepping into a warm bath, or pulling on a heavy, soft jumper. The sky is so broad, that for the first time he knows, truly understands, that the cosmos goes on forever. It is liberally sprinkled with stars. More, he is sure, than hang above Oxford.

“Pretty amazing, right?” Jakes stands behind him, and Morse turns to see his head tipped up too. “Never get tired of it.”

“It is,” Morse allows. He doesn’t know what more to say; there doesn’t seem to be a way to translate this beauty into words. All the poems he knows, and not one does justice to this – a blanket of stardust, each speck making more of the whole.

“Here.” Jakes hands him a cool, opened bottle of beer, popping the lid off another one for himself. Morse looks down for the first time, and realises there’s something of a set-up here – two padded garden chairs, a cool box, a radio. Morse takes what must be Hope’s usual seat as Jakes settles in.

They sit, and they drink, and as they finish the beer Jakes cracks out a bottle of whiskey; different to Morse’s usual scotch but interesting. Bourbon. He rolls the name around in his head. Perhaps Sainsburys stocks it. Morse catches Jakes up on all the happenings of Oxford, small and far away as they seem now. Jakes seems invested though, and not just in hearing of Strange, Thursday and Max, but also wanting to know all about Lewis, and his current cases.

“Why are you so interested?” he asks, after a rundown of a case from last month, that had involved stolen lingerie and a lost cat that had eventually turned up, leading them to the killer. It’s a convoluted one, and it’d caused some scratching of heads, but it’s not in the league of opera killings or spy rings.

Jakes shrugs. “Part of me misses it. There’s not much intrigue in cows.”

“But you're happy?” He can't see how Jakes wouldn't be – lovely wife, still beautiful, and three children grown and off in the world, forging their paths.

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

Jakes’ smoke curls into the air, and Morse alternates between watching the stars and sipping at the peaty bourbon. He can understand why Jakes likes it here, much as he'd never swap Oxford's streets for wide open skies. It must feel freeing, though, for this to be home. Especially after... everything.

“What about you? It was Joan for you, wasn't it?”

Morse looked at him in surprise, because yes, it had been, but he hadn't figured that out himself until weeks after Jakes had left. But he'd seen it.

“Didn't work out,” he mutters, and leaves it at that, unsure even after all these years how to distil those convoluted months into a neat, packaged anecdote.

“Anyone else?”

“Now and then.”

Jakes seems to read enough from his tone, and the fact that he's here at all – turned up on an old colleague's doorstep years after they had any contact at all – that he's not exactly got a cosy wife and children waiting at home. He drops the subject, picking a story about his oldest learning to ride and then trying to giddy up one of the cows. There had been pictures in the house, but he gets out his wallet and hands Morse the photos inside, his favourites; one of all three children, young enough that Morse would hate to have to hazard ages, and one of Hope as she’d looked back in Oxford, with hair dark brown and Wyoming sun glinting from it.

“We’d just arrived then. Or, returned I guess, in Hope’s case.”

“That go alright?” He’d wondered, when they left. A golden girl back from Oxford, but baby on the way and Jakes on her arm. Jakes can be charming of course, and he’s tall and good looking, but not in a way that would endear him to parents. A tough situation; he’d have been rubbish at farming, probably culture-shocked, probably sullen. A move can’t change everything overnight.

“It was ropey, not gonna lie.” He tops off their drinks, and Morse smiles at the glug from bottle to glass. “But her parents managed to smile in time for the wedding photos.”

“Where are they now?”

“Retired. They live in town. Suits her mum down to the ground but I think her dad misses being out on the range. He can’t any more though; Parkinson's. Just pumps me for information every time we visit and tells me what I’m doing wrong.”

“After thirty years?”

Jakes grins. “Oh yeah.”

They lapse into silence; the bourbon warming his insides and the leftover day heat still warming the outside. He sinks into the garden chair, relaxing for probably the first time in far too long. He’s at an age where aches and pains are becoming permanent residents, but whether it’s the booze or the holiday, right now, he feels fine.

It’s probably the booze.

“You never wrote.”

He glances to the side. Jakes is staring outwards over his land, and although it’s dark, the whites of his eyes catch the light. “No.”

“Strange did. Well, I say write. Postcards.”

“So you already know all the stories I told you?”

“Bits and pieces.” He lights and takes a drag of another cigarette. “But I wanted to hear it from your side. Why didn't you write?”

“Not much of a one for it.”

“Funny. You always had so many words. And your head in books.”

Morse think about his suitcase out in the car, half full of books and half of clothes, and the way he doesn’t know what to say despite that. “It’s not about having lots of words. It's the way you order them.”

“Let me guess. Dostoevsky? Dickens? Plato?”

Morse smirks. “Morse.”

Jakes reaches across and knuckles at Morse's head, and god help him but he grins, tension broken, batting him away playfully like they’re teenagers, not men the wrong side of fifty. “You know, they have these new-fangled inventions called phones.”

“Really? Never heard of them.”

“You could probably even afford one, on your fancy Inspector salary.”

“What would we say?”

“Fuck all, probably. Like now.”

“So why bother?”

“So it’s not thirty years next time, Morse. So you don't turn up unannounced on my bloody wedding anniversary.”

“Your-” Morse fumbles his glass, twisting to face Jakes. “Shit. Really? Your wedding anniversary?”

Jakes tops up his glass again, but it’ll have to be the last one because Morse is feeling decidedly floaty. “We've had a lot of them, don't worry about it. Weren't doing nothing tonight anyway, I'm taking her into town on Saturday.” He looks at Morse slyly. “You're welcome to join us, if you're still here then?”

“No, god no, I'll be out of your hair-”

“Morse.” He lays a hand on Morse's knee. “Stay as long as you want. Come to dinner in town on Saturday. Or stay here and watch the dogs for us.” He pauses, but his hand is pressing down and it holds Morse in place. “Don't run away on me.”

Morse shakes his head. The warmth of Jakes’ hand retreats, but he still feels anchored to his chair. “Do you ever think about coming back?” Jakes looks at him sharply, and he clarifies, “not forever. To visit I mean.” Jakes shrugs, and knocks back the last of his drink. “If you ever do. I've got a spare room, I can put you and Hope up. Just... just a suggestion.”

“Thanks Morse.” He claps a hand on his back. “We'll bear it in mind.” It's a polite dismissal, but Morse can't really blame Jakes for not wanting to return. It’s been so long, and his life is here now. Why go back to a city of shadows and misery, when you live your days in the wide-open light? “I know it’s a long way, but – there's always a bed for you here, too.”

He thinks of what it might be like, to give it all up and come out this way. Somewhere where he might actually end up passing by, and could drop in now and then for a night on the roof with stars and a bottle. It's a pipe dream. Oxford is under his skin, and he can't imagine cutting that cord, not now, too set in his ways. Maybe if he'd come out here younger, five or ten years after Jakes. But then he'd have been all mixed up in his young family, with no time for old not-really-friends.

“Thanks. Lewis has been telling me to take my holidays.”

“Sounds like a smart one.”

“Don't say things like that Jakes, you'll give him ideas.”

“I think we're safe out here.”

Morse leans back and looks at the stars again. He’s picks out the Plough, although he thinks they call it the Big Dipper in these parts. “Yes. I suppose we are."


End file.
